Written By komlim puldel on Minggu, 11 Mei 2014 | 23.08

COCAINE use in Britain is now so high it has contaminated the drinking water, scientific tests have revealed.

Experts from the Drinking Water Inspectorate experts found traces of the party drug, in a form that has been passed through the body, in treated tap water — despite intensive water purification treatments.

Steve Rolles, from the drug policy think tank Transform, told The Sunday Times that the findings reveal how widely used cocaine is.

"We have the near highest level of cocaine use in western Europe," he said. "It has also been getting cheaper and cheaper at the same time as its use has been going up."

About 700,000 people aged 16 to 59 are estimated to take cocaine every year in Britain.

As well as benzoylecgonine or metabolised cocaine, scientists also found traces of ibuprofen, caffeine and carbamazepine, a drug for treating epilepsy, in tap water.

However health officials stressed that the traces of drugs found in the water supply were very low and unlikely to represent a danger to the public.

"Estimated exposures for most of the detected compounds are at least thousands of times below doses seen to produce adverse effects in animals and hundreds of thousands below human therapeutic doses," the report said.

EMERGING Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo claimed his first podium finish in Formula One as the Mercedes team dominated the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.

Lewis Hamilton took over leadership of the drivers championship with his fourth win in a row, finishing just 0.6 seconds ahead of his teammate Nico Rosberg.

The Englishman moved to 100 points for the season, three ahead of German Rosberg.

Ricciardo came home third for Red Bull ahead of his teammate, defending four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who had started from 15th on the grid.

Ricciardo leads Lotus' French driver Romain Grosjean at the Circuit de Catalunya.Source: AFP

After winning by just a few car lengths at the Circuit de Catalunya, Hamilton said Rosberg had been the faster driver, but he had won thanks to advice from his team in the closing stages. "Nico was quicker. I struggled with the balance and needed to rely on my engineers," Hamilton said.

"I was moving my settings up and down and fortunately I was able to keep Nico behind." Rosberg, after finishing second behind Hamilton for the fourth consecutive time, said he felt he needed just one more lap to make a passing move.

"Unfortunately that was it and I am a bit gutted, but still, second place, second in the championship and many more races to go... I will go to Monaco to go one better and try and repeat the win from last year."

For Ricciardo it was a moment of special satisfaction, having finished third in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix before being disqualified for a fuel irregularity.

"We did not have the pace on Mercedes," said the West Australian, who finished 49 sec behind Hamilton.

"We had a pretty comfortable third place and it is really nice to be on the podium and I am sure I will get to keep it this time!"

It was Hamilton's first win in Spain and the 26th of his career while the Mercedes one-two stamped their complete supremacy on the constructors' championship which they now lead by more than 100 points.

Hamilton added that he had not dared dream of such a strong start to his second season with Mercedes after his unexpected decision to leave McLaren.

Hamilton leads from the start of the race with the burning tyres causing a smoky beginning.Source: AFP

"This is what the idea was, that I was given. I wasn't sure we could actually be a second faster than Red Bull, but we've managed to do it. I'm really pleased and to have our fourth 1-2 finish together is unreal."

Hamilton now has a 55-point lead over fourth-placed Vettel, whose strong drive after two days blighted by setbacks signalled his threat.

The German said: "That was more fun than the last race when I had to let people by. All in all it was the maximum we could do."

Frenchman Romain Grosjean was eighth for Lotus, signalling their return to some form after a dismal start to the year, ahead of Mexican Sergio Perez and his Force India team-mate German Nico Hulkenberg, who was 10th.

She asked: "The last thing is that you have an oral contract with your management, the Fordham company, is that an attempt to hide your income?"

This tipped Belfort over the edge and he rose from his chair, declaring "no one's ever treated me as disrespectfully as you have", leaving The Nine reporter dumbfounded.

Belfort eventually returned to the room, but not before accusing Hayes of doing "a hatchet job" of the interview.

Belfort, who was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the Oscar-nominated film, The Wolf of Wall Street, spent 22 months in prison for fraud and money laundering, after ripping off investors to the tune of more than a hundred million dollars.

Nowadays, The Wolf insists he's a changed man and is coming to Australia to sell his tale of redemption and the importance of ethics in business, at high price seminars.

* Gasnier captained Australia in eight Tests and was captain of the 1967-68 Kangaroos.

* He played third grade with St George in 1958 from junior club Renown United, and played first grade and Test football the following season. He played four games in reserve grade and then five in first grade before being chosen for NSW in 1959.

* Gasnier played President's Cup (junior representative) 1957-58.

* He scored three tries in his second Test against New Zealand, three tries in his first match on the 1959-60 Kangaroo tour and three in his Test debut against Great Britain.

Reg Gasnier pictured in 1975.Source: News Limited

* He played in six of St George's grand final winning sides (1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965).

* Former Sydney Sun sportswriter EE Christensen chose Gasnier as the NSW Player of the Year in 1959, 1961 and 1964 (with Johnny Raper).

* Injury ended Gasnier's career prematurely in France in 1968.

* With Clive Churchill, Johnny Raper and Bob Fulton, he was named as one the original "Immortals" in Rugby League Week in 1981.

Mitchell Bingemann speaks with Telstra boss David Thodey about the trends he sees coming out of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Will sky be the new limit ... Telstra trialling network using 4G between Sydney and Melbourne.Source: Getty Images

THE sky may soon be the limit for using your phone and the internet while on board a flight.

Telstra has begun trialling the use of mobiles on planes, including the ability to deliver a broadband signal to aircraft that allows phone users to use 4G to browse the web, send and receive emails, make video calls, watch movies and download music and photos.

The testing of the "Skinet" network on mock flights between Melbourne and Sydney has so far delivered fast speeds of up to 15 megabits per second.

About 1 to 2 megabits per second is needed by mobile phone users on the ground to download a video or music.

MISLEADING ADS: Telstra wins over Optus

TELSTRA: Yearly upgrade plan for latest smartphone

Special antennas have been erected on four phone towers between the two capitals to deliver broadband signals to passengers en route.

A man climbs the Sydney Opera House and is escorted down by police after they attach him to a harness. Rough Cut. (No Reporter Narration).

HE might have lacked the operatic abilities of tenors normally performing at the Sydney Opera House, but this sozzled Souths fan still managed to draw a huge crowd when he scaled the harbour landmark yesterday.

EMERGING Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo claimed his first podium finish in Formula One as the Mercedes team dominated the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.

Lewis Hamilton took over leadership of the drivers championship with his fourth win in a row, finishing just 0.6 seconds ahead of his teammate Nico Rosberg.

The Englishman moved to 100 points for the season, three ahead of German Rosberg.

Ricciardo came home third for Red Bull ahead of his teammate, defending four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who had started from 15th on the grid.

Ricciardo leads Lotus' French driver Romain Grosjean at the Circuit de Catalunya.Source: AFP

After winning by just a few car lengths at the Circuit de Catalunya, Hamilton said Rosberg had been the faster driver, but he had won thanks to advice from his team in the closing stages. "Nico was quicker. I struggled with the balance and needed to rely on my engineers," Hamilton said.

"I was moving my settings up and down and fortunately I was able to keep Nico behind." Rosberg, after finishing second behind Hamilton for the fourth consecutive time, said he felt he needed just one more lap to make a passing move.

"Unfortunately that was it and I am a bit gutted, but still, second place, second in the championship and many more races to go... I will go to Monaco to go one better and try and repeat the win from last year."

For Ricciardo it was a moment of special satisfaction, having finished third in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix before being disqualified for a fuel irregularity.

"We did not have the pace on Mercedes," said the West Australian, who finished 49 sec behind Hamilton.

"We had a pretty comfortable third place and it is really nice to be on the podium and I am sure I will get to keep it this time!"

It was Hamilton's first win in Spain and the 26th of his career while the Mercedes one-two stamped their complete supremacy on the constructors' championship which they now lead by more than 100 points.

Hamilton added that he had not dared dream of such a strong start to his second season with Mercedes after his unexpected decision to leave McLaren.

Hamilton leads from the start of the race with the burning tyres causing a smoky beginning.Source: AFP

"This is what the idea was, that I was given. I wasn't sure we could actually be a second faster than Red Bull, but we've managed to do it. I'm really pleased and to have our fourth 1-2 finish together is unreal."

Hamilton now has a 55-point lead over fourth-placed Vettel, whose strong drive after two days blighted by setbacks signalled his threat.

The German said: "That was more fun than the last race when I had to let people by. All in all it was the maximum we could do."

Frenchman Romain Grosjean was eighth for Lotus, signalling their return to some form after a dismal start to the year, ahead of Mexican Sergio Perez and his Force India team-mate German Nico Hulkenberg, who was 10th.

SCIENTISTS have announced the discovery of a hypervelocity star, a rare type of star that is flung at high speeds out of the orbit of the Milky Way.

Only about 20 such stars have ever been found.

Unlike our Sun, which similar to most stars in the Milky Way travels in a predictable orbit around the galaxy's centre, hypervelocity stars are leaving the galaxy at high speed.

The reason for this is not fully understood but scientists believe it has to do with the powerful gravitational pull at the galaxy's centre.

Hypervelocity stars appear to be remaining pairs of stars that once orbited each other and got too close to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way (the galaxy containing Earth).

The pull of gravity from the black hole — equivalent to the mass of 4 million stars like our Sun — captures one star so it orbits the hole closely, and slingshots the other on a trajectory headed beyond the galaxy.

According to the University of Utah, the latest hypervelocity star, known as LAMOST-HVS1, is 42,000 light-years from Earth, making it the closest star of its kind yet discovered.

It is moving at 477 kilometres per second, according to scientists at the Xinglong Observing Station of the National Astronomical Observatories of China near Beijing, where the star was first discovered.